This plan of mine to acquire meals seems to be working out nicely, and I'm making tons of new friends. Nigar, the female law student, and I went for dinner two nights ago. She's super sweet and outgoing. She wants to study international law so that she can use her language skills. We met up again today and spent hours and hours shopping in the clothes markets. Not really buying anything, just sort of wandering. Tomorrow and Saturday I have plans either with her or with two other friends. The two other friends are also May babies, so the three of us are going to a nice dinner to celebrate our birthdays. Then Sunday for lunch I am meeting the Japanese owner of the Fubar - foreigner owned bar in town. And Sunday night I am meeting up again with Anwar, the Ughyur student who I had dinner with a few nights ago. So that's the next three days worth of social events and meals already scheduled. Rock on.
So not surprisingly, my outlook on being here for the next two weeks has taken an up turn. Funny since it's usually the other way around and I enjoy my time overseas until the last two weeks when I'm starting to look forward to being home. Since I'm getting out a little more, I'm falling in love all over again. Though I'm still so looking forward to being home. Xinjiang really is a unique place. It is China and therefore Chinese, but it is also an incredible melting pot of diverse cultures and therefore not so much Chinese. The area right here around the school is mostly Ughyur, so you can walk down the street and snack on samsa (like samosas - baked dough wrapped around lamb and onions), kebab and nan, pullo (rice mixed with red peppers and lamb), or stroll through the street carts for noodle dishes, slices of watermelon, nuts, raisins, any other assortment of fruits. The sidewalks are also jammed full of people hawking clothing, belts, watches, shoes, hats, balloons, toys, etc. It's a sea of bodies. A sea of bodies without much concept of deodorant, but a sea of very interesting people nonetheless. I don't blend in but at the same time it's a very international-looking crowd. There are people with light brown hair, red hair, fair skin, light colored eyes. The eyes are incredible. Some of the people around here have dark rings around the iris and a light golden eye color that looks like it glows hauntingly from within. And the sounds are incredible. In addition to men standing on stools shouting the prices for their wares, there are CD stores blaring Ughyur music into the streets. You could easily and quickly imagine you're in an entirely different country. Until you catch sight of the Chinese paramilitary police camped out with assault rifles on a street corner...
And speaking of a melting pot of cultures, the Fubar has to be the most fascinating bar in all of China. I wandered in again last night, and the place had me and the Japanese owner and then also Chinese, British, Dutch, Kyrgyz (from Kyrgyzstan, not Chinese Kyrgyz), a couple of guys from Africa (who claim they're from New York), and I'm sure more that I just hadn't identified. The Kyrgyz were funny. They were complaining that the vodka they ordered came in a glass rather than a bottle, and they weren't served shot glasses. They also apparently order vodka in grams in the former Soviet Union, and it was a big problem with them that things here aren't done the same as at home.
Then there are the Chinese locals that frequent the bar. There are a few women who seem to have claimed the place as their own. They burst through the door in an attention grabbing "look at me" show, speak loudly in english to all of the foreign expats they know, put their handbags behind the bar, and order "the usual". Then they proceed to make themselves an annoyance to anyone who will listen. They are not like the average Chinese and almost seem to be having an identity crisis trying to emulate what they see of foreigners from watching too much television. One gal last night came in with puffy eyes and bedraggled hair complaining about her hard day at work because she had to stay past 7 for a dinner meeting. Another gal a few days ago shoved me over to make room for her friend at the bar and put her hand on my lower back calling me "sweetie" in a very condescending tone. And then proceeded to blow smoke directly in my face. Fun fun. But it's fantastic people watching and an incredible psych study in the rising middle class spoiled brat phenomenon. It is an expensive bar by Chinese standards (about average for an American bar) and so the local patronage doesn't have a lot to complain about their lot in life. But it's also a bar and therefore a place where a certain category go to look for an ear to bend against their woes. True in any country, I guess, but particularly fascinating here.
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